A Striker typo and some questions

[jec10]

Posted this on the ct-striker yahoogroup for no response...

Just finalising preparations for a major CT/Striker battle and made a
discovery. There is what I judge to be a typo in the Grenade Launchers
table in Book 3: Equipment. It is in the weight of the ammo for the
TL10 4cm RAM GL which I think should have been 1.6kg rather than the
16kg appearing (first time after all these years that I've had
infantry using this particular weapon).

Also a question, how do others play the design sequence for MRLs? I
assume that the total weight of an MRL system is the weight of all the
tubes, plus a carriage if needed, plus indirect fire control, plus the
sum of the weights of the individual rockets. That is, the weight of
the rockets needs to be added to the weight of the tubes.

Furthermore, the MRL design sequence says that MRL rounds are
identical to mortar rounds "with the following exceptions" and then
says that "rockets weigh twice as much as listed". Given that the CPR
gun design sequence says that mortar rounds weigh half as much as
listed CPR ammo weights, does this mean that rockets weigh the same as
a CPR round (or twice the weight of a mortar round). Or does it really
mean that rockets weigh twice as much as non-mortar rounds of the same
calibre?

 

[shield]

I have always assumed MRL rounds were the same mass etc as normal rounds. Halfed for mortar rounds and then doubled for MRL.

Cheers
Richard

 

[dccarles]

Also a question, how do others play the design sequence for MRLs? I
assume that the total weight of an MRL system is the weight of all the
tubes, plus a carriage if needed, plus indirect fire control, plus the
sum of the weights of the individual rockets. That is, the weight of
the rockets needs to be added to the weight of the tubes.

I've gone over the Striker I rules thoroughly for, uhm, more than two decades now. IMHO, it is badly ridden with errors like this, and needs a cleanup.

First, MRL tubes are ~grossly overpriced (at half the cost of an equivalent CPR gun.) Remember, the Nebelwerfer was supposed to be a cheap n' dirty supplement to regular artillery for Volksgrenadier divisions. FWIW, I usually just design MRL rockets like unguided tac missiles.

The weight of a tac missile warhead as being 0.05 x the mass of a regular round seems to be a very misleading typo. IIRC, mortar rounds are something like 25% explosive by mass. So as written, tac missile warheads are ..250% explosive by mass.

Antipersonnel fire is extremely deadly at low TLs. A regular (+1 to hit) firing an auto rifle at long range (+2 to hit IIRC, 10+) at an evading man-sized target (-1 to hit) hits on 8+ (15/36) for one fire phase (fifteen seconds.) At this rate, any squad that's spotted will be destroyed in two minutes, even under cover. Armour mitigates this somewhat, but before combat armour/battle dress, the number of hits will quickly add up.

Conversely, HE fragmentation is pretty ineffective, even with large guns, because the fragmentation penetration rarely climbs above 3 and most TL7+ troops will be wearing cloth (AR 5.)

Even at high TLs, you're better off shooting your non-laser-guided artillery rounds long and hope they deviate short, rather than aiming the MPI directly at the target.

Costs to maintain gear and troops differ radically by TL. At TL 5, 95% of your costs go to maintaining the troops - ergo, there's little reason ~not to motorize all your troops, since equipment is so cheap. At high TLs, for an all-infantry force with transport, equipment can easily exceed 50% of the unit maintenance cost. It seems to me these are backward.

I dearly love Striker I, and I'd love to see it overhauled some day.

--Devin Carless

 

[jec10]

Great comments Devin. I agree completely. In Ten Million Credit Striker I never use MRLs - overpriced as they are. And they only get to fire once or twice a game anyway! There are far more cost effective means of indirect fire support if playing the rules as written.

There are other flaws I find annoying, such as,

* the lack of an effective suppressive fire mechanism - what I mean is something to simulate the basic infantry tactic of having a base of fire lay down suppressive fire to make the enemy keep their heads down while another element closes with them by movement. Given the sequence of play in CT/Striker this is just not possible - I tend to insert a friendly suppressive fire phase before the appropriate movement phase;

* mass drivers have no real advantages over autocannons as indirect fire weapons, and no advantages as direct fire weapons re range/penetration;

* there are no effective manportable autofire weapons for use against troops wearing body armour apart from RAM auto-GLs;

* the morale system which needs to be overhauled so that weight of incoming fire (number of hits) has an effect, not just casualties incurred;

* I prefer the modern wargaming style of a deterministic spotting system (i.e. I can spot a stand in foliage cover at X metres - no die roll required) to CT/Striker's fussy die roll method.

* There is no countermeasure to TL13+ x-ray lasers, which have longer direct fire ranges than energy weapons as well. For tank-killing there is no substitute. Yet up to TL13, anti-laser aerosols are so cheap that you can afford to buy in bulk and simply pop one every turn (no need to waste money on laser sensors), making your troops essentially invulnerable to laser weapons, laser designated missiles, and laser rangefinders.

 

[dccarles]

I haven't played Striker that much...I don't have that many miniatures or miniature-interested friends. So real experience playing is something I'm short on.

Some possible solutions:
* Instead of inserting an additional fire phase (Striker, IMHO, suffers from the too-much-fire not-enough-movement problem) to reflect suppressive fire, the morale table could be changed and/or have near-misses add to the difficulty of the morale check.

* MRLs, I've found, do have one advantage over autocannon at low TLs: low TL autocannon have a limited maximum bore size, so MRLs are the preferred method of delivering CBM rounds in massive quantities. At higher TLs, this disappears, of course, and large-bore artillery becomes vulnerable to point defense.

* I'm not too concerned by the lack of non-GL squad support weapons; if that's the way technology develops, so be it. However, the lack of a SAW counterpart to the ACR is pretty perplexing.

* I always load my TL 9-12 vehicles and troops down with antilaser aerosols; vehicle lasers I use for sniping at anything foolish enough to move around in high mode. (The assumption is that while enemy vehicles can pop aerosols every turn, they can't realistically keep it up for hours on end.)

Right now, I'm designing a TL 12 half militia/half conscript army (Serendip Belt Levy Infantry.) Because of the power plant scale efficiencies and the surface area/volume ratio, I've found it's much more efficient to design an APC to carry a full platoon, rather than a squad.

--Devin